


And He Doesn't Say

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-12
Updated: 2007-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney gets to touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And He Doesn't Say

Rodney kneels at the foot of the bed, fingers wrapped around one of John's ankles, watching, waiting, holding his breath as he swallows around all that he feels, all that he sees, the fact that he can –

– he looks at his fingers.

 _Touch_.

And he bends his head, kisses the inside of John's bony knee so that the words don't spill out, so that he doesn't try to say things that are beyond him like: beautiful, _beautiful_ ; I've seen you run and climb and pace and these muscles are a strength beyond knowing (marker pens, whiteboards, the xy spill of your thighs and the way I'd curve parentheses around you if I could, at night, early morning, a stolen moment to set aside from the numbered count of your steps).

I notice each mole, this scar, the push of your ribs as you draw in air, and my hands aren't broad enough to map this matter; my fingers know conduits, not human warmth. But at rest you let me press my nose to the breadth of your shoulder blade, and when I kiss the jut of your hipbone you sigh as if this is the end of the waiting you've done in solitude.

I fell first for the freckle below your left ear.

Once I grazed the underside of your jaw with my fingertips and my body sang back to the careless drag of your stubble, but there isn't math enough to capture what you mean when you lean against me, tired and drawn.

Lean here. I'll wait.

Your skull fits snug into the palm of my hand when I kiss you, chase down the silver taste of the way you hide, and all the language I hoard hums quick to your lungs, sends red cells spinning with my fondness for collarbone and elbow. It shocks me (volts of fading blindness) to see how you're smiling when I lift my head, when my fingers find yours, when my nails graze the small of your back and you keen like this is belonging.

When you're hard, I'm so breathless I can't look away.

– and he doesn't say _beautiful; beautiful_ , but John's eyes grow dark and he reaches toward him, tugs him torso to torso. And in the tangle of limbs and gasps that follow Rodney hears it – _beautiful_ – whispered back by teeth that nip where blood hammers joyfully between his fragile wristbones, and he arches up into a want he hears with the curve of his spine.


End file.
